Jobs with no degree

[chargeitup]

Off the back of another thread about the merits of university, can people suggest jobs with good future prospects that can lead to careers on par with professions that you don't need a degree for please.

I feel like anything remotely ambitious is held for those with degrees. Even if the degree is irrelevant to the role.

I'd love to hear about current roles that people can genuinely get that can lead onto well paying highly respected careers

Entrepreneur - take charge of your own success. Apprenticeships, though few and far between, offer a way into professions including accountancy engineering and the law, without the debt of university. Journalism, freelance copywriting - tricky but possible without a degree if you have a flair for writing. Joining a stast-up or scale up in an admin capacity, doing well and getting promoted.

, plumber, builder. Car mechanic. All would earn more than a graduate.

Accountancy

There are so many paths, is this for your children OP? How old are they? What are their interests? Do they have a strong work ethic, are they prepared to work hard, do they prefer outdoors, using their hands, other people, working alone? Are they inventive? Do they prefer to lead or be part of the team that gets things done?

What do you mean by good? Just in terms of salary? Or wanting to get up each day? Would they be happy with repetitive work that pays well or would they go insane and need variety?

AI will change the working environment, there will be ways of producing and using energy in 20 years time we can’t imagine yet.

There just isn’t a defined answer to this question.

People will always need to eat, AI can’t replace that, being a taster for major food brands pays a fortune, but you need the most sensitive tastebuds and a passion. Running a frequented food/drinks venue would be long unsocial hours, but ideal if enjoying people’s company and delight in them enjoying your food and atmosphere. Producing flour, wine, cheese, more lonely perhaps but striving to continuously find new tastes and being dependable in supply.

Logistics for travel and deliveries.
Train driver.
Transport will always be needed.

So really it depends on a person’s strengths, weaknesses, what drives them, makes them feel fulfilled. “Good” shouldn’t just be about money, it should also be about passion, fulfilment, service, who you spend a large part of your working life with and doing.

Police, fire, ambulance, postie, nail beautician, cameraman, wedding organisation, vicar?

Guide your children but they need to lead the way.

There are thousands of well paid jobs/careers, they become well paid when there is a drive and dedication from the person entering that profession.

I’m in reinsurance. A significant proportion of our trainee intake for claims and underwriting every year are school leavers and young people without degrees. It’s an interesting line of work, with good career prospects, and rewards those with strong skills in analysis, communication and focus. There are also lots of opportunities to work closely alongside people of all ages and levels of experience and seniority, which I think is really beneficial for young people.

There are all types of avenues for progression: some people go upwards as senior claims specialists, or into broader operations and compliance, across the business into niche areas like borderaux, or into project management.

Thank you this is the sort of thing I was interested in hearing about.
Why are you hiring school leavers when so many big insurance companies seem to hire via the graduate schemes system?

I don't have a degree and I'm head of talent (wanky term for recruitment) at a large company. I started as a recruitment admin and work up.

I work for a council, no degree I went to uni but it wasn’t for me. I knew my abilities though, I’m in a very senior position now and management in our council actually prefer to recruit those with work experience.

The graduates we’ve had in have been a nitemare 🤦‍♀️ clever on paper but that’s as far as it goes, no common sense very little skills etc (not all of course).

But it’s entirely possible and I’ve undergone so much training along the way.

Marketing.

It is not uncommon to start with A'levels in English and something creative like Art, then take shorter courses with the Chartered Institute of Marketing to develop specific skills, while working.

Accountancy/tax.

One of my colleagues (I think she's around 28/29?) joined my firm as a school leaver. She's probably now on around 70k plus bonus.

• operational environments e.g. supermarkets, fast food - where people start on bottom rungs but there is significant opportunity to progress up the chain, a genuine career path e.g. start on meat counter, go to different counters, manage a department, become store, then area, then regional manager. Often great talent programmes too
• Estate agents / recruitment agents - lots of opportunity for hungry young people with initiative and then your ability to manage clients and make money is what means you progress or not
• as some above have said the accountancy firms. Big 4 all have school leaver programmes. Ultimately you end up doing internal training and possibly even an internal degree type qualification

I started volunteering at a Well womens centre.
Then l got asked if l would like to do some training.
I ended being a Doula and a woman's helper who had no help when going into hospital for an operation etc.. especially gynaecology ones.. l visted them. Went to appointments with them. Sorted home help etc etc.
I loved it and got paid very very well... and I'm disabled.. but I managed .

Accountancy
Chef/cook/caterer
Registrar

DSis was a copywriter, but was made redundant and is finding it hard to get work - she blames AI. I don't know how realistic this is.

Accountancy. Start in a junior role and and do the professional exams whilst progressing.

One of mine is a sports coach. Has worked abroad (and can do so again whenever they want), self-employed so has a high degree of flexibility but can still earn extra for doing work outside normal parameters or hours. Nice lifestyle apart from in British winter! Currently earns more than highly qualified scientist sibling.

Air Traffic Control

HR

Reinsurance is a relatively niche industry, and as a medium-sized (people wise) organisation with management who keep very close to the ground and an HR team who know the whole business well, we can be very agile in our hiring strategy. What’s important to the business is the best people - the best people for the job don’t always have degrees and people with degrees aren’t always the best for the job.

A lot of young people focus on graduate schemes, because that’s what they’ve heard about as a route into an industry, which the very large household names in many industries do tend to operate - but there’s a whole world of possible employers out there beyond the large household names.

Police, firefighter, paramedic, cabin crew, air traffic control, driving instructor, civil servant. Loads more that I can't think of off the top of my head

@ComtesseDeSpair
What’s important to the business is the best people - the best people for the job don’t always have degrees and people with degrees aren’t always the best for the job.

How do you identify the best people from school leavers. Presumably they don't all have a tranche of top A levels or they'd be off to uni. What is your hiring criteria?

The same way you should identify the best people from any application group: at application stage you read their covering statement, and at interview you ask them to talk you through how they’d approach X or Y given situation, and ask for examples of how they’ve approached a particular problem or achieved a particular outcome in the past.

An increasing number of employers - including two of the Big Four, many Magic Circle law firms, and a good proportion of the London insurance market, now use blind recruitment practices: your academic grades, the schools you attended, whether you went to university, your degree subject will be hidden from the people who review your CV and the people who interview you. They interview individuals on their actual personal presentation and merits, not a set of grades on paper.

We need to get away from the idea that having “a tranche of top A Levels” and going to university puts you ahead of the game for every career path. It doesn’t. Academic success and being a book learner is a very specific skill set, and it’s not necessarily the skill set that will help you to succeed across the board.

Insurance for one of the big three broking houses.
Interesting and varied job and if you go to London the sky's the limit.
I started off in a call centre then switched to commercial insurance as an account handler and worked my way up to Account Director. Pays well too.

Most roles in banking don't require a degree. Lots of corporates have apprenticeship schemes. What's of interest?

You can also do law as a paralegal / apprenticeship and qualify as a solicitor without going to uni.

Neither of my older sons have a degree, eldest is a welder works for a huge company and earns a v good wage @ 23 his friend is a plumber and also earns really well, similar for joiners. My younger son is aviation, not amazing money for what he does but he’s 19 so it will improve as he gets older, neither were interested in further study or uni but also didn’t really know what they wanted to do.